The Struggle Read online

  The floor of the massive mansion that belonged to Gable’s mother shook and rattled like it was nothing more than a piece of cardboard.

  Shooting off the couch, I let the thin, soft-as-a-dream blanket fall to the floor as the rumbling became sound, a building roar that shook my chest and raised tiny goose bumps along my arms.

  Eyes wide, I turned in a slow circle as books tumbled from shelves, smacking off the floor. Above me, a crystal chandelier, one that probably cost more than a car, trembled and clanked. Teardrop-shaped crystals fell to the floor, shattering into pieces. A tall, slender lamp toppled over, smashing its pale gray shade. Behind me, more books hit the floor.

  “What in the world?” I whispered, voice hoarse and tired—tired from the tears that had been burning up my throat.

  Something—something big was happening, and it could be anything. A horde of daimons. Another ticked-off, supercharged Titan. A wave of shades that had escaped from Tartarus. It could . . . it could even be Seth.

  No.

  He wouldn’t be doing this, whatever this was, no matter what Alex and Aiden believed about him. He wouldn’t put me in danger of the house caving in on me.

  Snatching my titanium dagger off the end table, I darted around falling books and tore open the door, hitting the brightly lit hallway just as an explosion of thunder deafened my pounding heart. Glass shattered at the end of the hall, no doubt a priceless vase rendered to nothing more than shards. The house shook again. Art canvassed slipped from the walls as I raced into the grand atrium, my gaze immediately zeroing in on the scorched spot where Atlas had once stood.

  The spot where the Titan had died.

  And not too far from there, Solos had taken his final breath. That space on the floor was clear, wiped clean of blood, but for a split second I saw him staring down at his chest, at the gaping hole where his heart had been before his knees had given out. He’d been dead before he hit the floor, and he hadn’t deserved that. Solos should still be here.

  Swiping the memory aside, my gaze flew to the glass double doors. They were closed, but the way the panes of glass shook I doubted they would stay intact much longer.

  I gasped as another quake hit the house. The floor rolled and rippled under my feet like water, lifting me up. I stumbled to the side, throwing my arms out to steady myself.

  Somewhere in the house, doors slammed open and someone shouted one word.

  “Earthquake!”

  Earthquake!

  Relief punched me so hard in the gut that I laughed—laughed loudly and a bit crazily. Just an earthquake.

  Duh.

  I was in southern California.

  Not everything had to be supernatural.

  Lowering the dagger, I turned to the spiral staircase. Several half-asleep people stood there, and of course, I was using the term “people” loosely.

  There wasn’t a single mortal in the house.

  The shaking subsided as Deacon ran his fingers through his messy blond curls. “I hate California,” he grumbled.

  Behind him, Luke was scrubbing a hand over his eyes. His bronze-colored hair was sticking up in every direction. Standing beside them was Gable. Poor Gable. We’d literally plucked him off a beach, told him that his father was Poseidon and that he was also a demigod whose powers were bound, and then he witnessed up close and personal what a Titan was capable of.

  The fact that he was standing there and not rocking in a corner somewhere was admirable.

  “We haven’t had one that bad in a long time,” Gable said with sleep clinging to his voice. “We’ll definitely get an aftershock from that.”

  Deacon’s pale gray eyes widened. “Aftershock?”

  Gable nodded. “Or that could’ve been a foreshock. You never really know.”

  “What is that?” Deacon lowered his hand, frowning. “Like an uncircumcised earthquake?”

  Aiden, his older brother, lifted his chin and stared at the ceiling, slowly shaking his dark head. There were no two brothers less alike. Well, maybe Lucifer and Michael. They were brothers.

  My lips twitched into a tired smile as Gable explained exactly what a foreshock was. Aiden reached out, draping an arm over the shoulders of Alex Andros. Her hair was a mess, but a sexy mess. When I woke up, my hair looked like I’d stuck my fingers in an electrical outlet, but not Alex. Hers was a tumble of wavy locks.

  She was beautiful in a wild, unfettered way, and while we’d tentatively bonded over our shared time with evil psycho gods and our truly weird relation to Apollo, I wasn’t nearly as close to her as Deacon and Luke were.

  She and Aiden were legends, actual legends.

  And they were so in love with one another that there was no doubt in my mind that they’d spend eternity together wanting no one else.

  Aiden placed a hand on the railing as he stared down into the atrium, his silvery gaze seeming to go to the spot mine had when I’d first entered, to where the Titan Atlas had stood, holding Solos’s heart in his meaty grip—to where Seth had gone all God Killer on everyone, tapping into all our powers, our aether, and killing Atlas.

  Something Seth should not have been able to do.

  God, that felt like forever ago, but it wasn’t. Only about a day had passed since Atlas had come through those very doors and snuffed out Solos’s life in a heartbeat. Only the night before when Seth had become something so feared that the Olympian gods had ended Alex’s mortal life to prevent her from becoming it. Only hours since I’d done what Medusa had warned with the blade dipped in the blood of the Pegasus, knocking Seth out long enough for him to at least calm down. And it had only been this morning when Seth had escaped the panic room, found me in the library, made love to me, held me in his arms, and finally, finally told me he loved me.

  Just seconds in a lifetime, and Seth had become a thing so powerful, so deadly that he’d left us, left me.

  An ache lit up my chest as I blinked back tears I refused to allow to fall. I would not cry, because there was no time for that. As soon as Hercules got back from communing with the gods or whatever he’d left at dawn to do, I was out of here, gone from this house that pretty much dripped the kind of money I couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around.

  Locating the other two demigods was what my father—Apollo—had ordered me to do, but that had fallen way down my priority list, and I didn’t even care. Didn’t give a flying Pegasus about what that said about me, because no one, no one had ever fought for Seth before.

  And I would.

  I would fight till my dying breath for him.

  Besides, it wasn’t like no one would be gathering up the other two bound demigods and brutally introducing them to a whole new way of life. The Army of Awesome, dubbed by Deacon himself, had promised to retrieve the demigods. One was somewhere in Thunder Bay and the other was living in some town in Britain.

  I’d promised Alex and Aiden that I would wait until Herc returned before I left to find Seth. I had a strong suspicion of where Seth had gone, and getting there, all the way to an island in the Aegean Sea, was not going to be easy.

  “Josie?” Aiden called.

  I blinked, refocusing on him. He was standing only a few feet from me, his hand wrapped firmly around Alex’s. Everyone was downstairs. I hadn’t heard them move. “Sorry?”

  “I asked if you’ve slept at all?”

  Nodding, I smoothed a hand over my head, catching the thin wisps of hair. I pushed them back from my face. “An hour or so.”

  Those startling silver eyes told me he knew I was lying, but it was Alex who spoke next. “You really should rest, Josie. Herc will be back soon, and we’ll have a better grasp on everything.”

  Herc had been planning to go to the gods to see how Seth could be contained, but since that was no longer an issue, I wasn’t quite sure what the point was now.

  Sighing, I glanced back to where one of the artworks had fallen to the floor. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep after an earthquake.”

  Gable shuffled pas
t us, heading toward the kitchen, mumbling about checking the Internet to see if there was anything about the earthquake. I’d vaguely remembered seeing a MacBook on the counter in there earlier.

  Luke lifted his arms over his head, stretching as he eyed the direction Gable had gone.

  “I’m kind of hungry,” Deacon announced.

  The corners of Luke’s lips tipped up. “You’re always hungry.”

  “Yeah, but the earthquake has made me even more hungry.” Deacon grinned as he folded an arm around the taller man’s waist. “Not sure how that works, but I could really go for a bowl of nachos.” He glanced over at the three of us. “Too bad none of you have cool powers.”

  “Cool powers?” murmured Aiden.

  “Yeah. Like two of you are made demigods.” Deacon nodded at his brother and Alex. “And you,” he said, talking about me, “are a legit real demigod, and none of you can whip up a plate of nachos out of thin air. What good is being a demigod if you can’t do that?”

  Alex laughed as she leaned into Aiden. Without looking at her, he let go of her hand and draped his arm over her shoulders, urging her closer. “Well, I guess we’re pretty useless.” She grinned.

  “That’s what I’ve been saying for a long time.” Deacon smiled when his brother rolled his eyes. “What time is it, anyway?”

  “A little after two.” I glanced down at the dagger I still held. What was I planning to do with it? Stab an earthquake with it? The slight weight in my hand, though, was a reminder of how different things were now from a year ago. Back then, if the ground had trembled, I would’ve known immediately what it was even in a land not accustomed to rocking and rolling, but now? Now I expected and prepared for a battle.

  My fingers tightened around the dagger.

  Though, for a moment, everything almost felt normal. Well, as normal as anything could be now. And I could almost pretend that Seth was going to walk through those fancy glass doors or out from one of the many hallways. He’d come to me, and we’d stand side by side, much like Alex and Aiden.

  Except that wasn’t going to happen.

  With a loud yawn, Alex looked around the grand room. “I wonder if there is any dam—”

  Under our feet, the floor rolled once more, throwing all of us in different directions. My knees cracked off the tile, and I dropped the dagger. It skittered across the floor as I planted my hands, steadying myself as Aiden cursed under his breath. I was frozen for a second and then I moved. Pushing to my feet, I threw my arms out as the floor, the walls—everything shuddered.

  Gable burst out from the kitchen, his face pale. Fear pierced my heart, because he lived here—lived where the ground shook often—and if he was freaked out, we should be freaked out.

  My wide gaze met Alex’s.

  “Holy shit!” Deacon grabbed the banister, holding on as the entire house seemed to shake from its foundation.

  Dust plumed into the air. A light above the door popped. Sparks flew. The thick, reinforced glass of the double doors slipped free and broke into pieces on the floor.

  “This is bad, so bad.” Alex gripped Aiden’s arm as pieces of plaster dropped from the ceiling, smashing onto the tiles.

  I darted to the side as another large chunk of the ceiling came down. The opulent, sparkling chandelier crashed into the floor and shattered.

  Then the floor split right open.

  Luke shouted as he hooked an arm around Deacon’s waist, yanking him away from the staircase. I swallowed a scream as a deep rift split the grand room, from the broken doors straight across the atrium, cutting through the scorched spot where Atlas was laid to waste. A chasm in the floor formed, several feet wide.

  The shaking eased off and then the world stilled again.

  “Gods,” muttered Aiden, keeping one hand on Alex’s shoulder as he knocked back several strands of wavy dark hair.

  Heart pounding, I turned to the rift in the floor and took a slow, small step toward it.

  “Be careful,” Gable warned. “The floor is unstable—this entire house is probably unstable right now.”

  “Is this . . . is this normal?” I asked, lifting my gaze to his. “Earthquakes do this?”

  Before I could answer, a strange scent filled the air. Not propane or the burning smell of electricity—scents that would be expected. No. I wrinkled my nose. It was a musty, damp, and dank smell. Like rich, undisturbed soil and decaying roots.

  My heart tumbled over.

  It reminded me of the way the shades smelled.

  “I have a really bad feeling about this,” Alex said.

  Aiden took a step back from the rift, pulling her with him as Deacon gasped out, “No shit.”

  “I think we should leave,” Gable announced, walking backward, toward the kitchen. “I really think we should just leave.”

  Movement stirred from the break in the ground. It sounded like rocks falling, bouncing off one another. Air caught in my lungs as a faint shiver skated over my skin, and instinct roared to the surface, forcing me to step back before I even realized what I was doing.

  Silence fell, and the only thing I could hear was the pounding of my heart. A dirt-stained hand appeared, reaching out from the chasm and smacking down on the broken tile.

  Chapter 3

  Something or someone was hauling itself out of the hole in the floor and that had “nope” written all over it. Nothing good could be climbing out from deep within the ground. I’d seen enough horror films to know that.

  Spinning around, I scanned the floor for the dagger I’d dropped and couldn’t see it in the mess that covered the tiles.

  Crap.

  Alex stepped to the side, blocking Gable, and her stance widened, shoulders squared. Even though she wore nothing more than leggings and a tank top, she looked badass and ready—prepared for anything. Alex was a demigod now, but she was first and foremost a Sentinel.

  The same went for Aiden and Luke. They took up the same stance, effectively continuing to force Deacon and Gable behind them.

  I saw all of this because somehow I was on the other side of the chasm.

  Another hand appeared and then a head—a dirt-covered bald head broke the surface, and I distantly heard someone gag.

  “Oh my gods,” I whispered, eyes widening with horror.

  Ripped and flayed skin peeled back from the head. Entire chunks of skin were missing from the hollowed cheeks. The skin on the arms was no better. Strips of flesh hung from the chest. One of the eyes was nothing more than an empty, rotten socket, and some kind of cloth was wrapped around its hips, a cloth that might’ve been white and pristine at one time, but was now covered in mud and singed with soot.

  The scent of sulfur misted the room.

  The one good eye met mine, and its iris was a milky blue.

  “Holy daimon babies,” whispered Alex. “Is that a zombie? Like a real zombie?”

  “That wasn’t an earthquake.” Aiden reached to his hip, but he was empty-handed. They’d been sleeping and had come downstairs with no daggers.

  “I think that’s obvious,” Deacon muttered from behind Luke.

  All of us were immobile with disbelief.

  The head on the thing swiveled from me to the other side, and then it pulled itself out, hitting the crushed tile on its hands and knees. A great shudder rolled through the wrecked body and it doubled over, opening its mouth and coughing violently, spewing clumps of soil and small pebbles.

  The thing spoke, rocking onto its knees, back bowing as it threw its arms out. “Δωρεάν.”

  It was a tone of voice so guttural that it sounded like its vocal cords had been destroyed, spoken in a language I didn’t recognize at first, and wouldn’t have if my demigod abilities hadn’t been unlocked.

  “Free,” I repeated, looking across the rift. “It said ‘free.’”

  Upon my voice, it turned its head at me again.

  “Free from what?” Deacon asked. “The set of The Walking Dead?”

  Any other time I would’ve lau
ghed, but that thing was rising to bare feet that were nothing more than gnawed muscle and bone. It took a step toward me.